Charles Chaney photograph collection

In the early 20th century, the choices were many for people wishing to make holiday excursions by train in the mid-Atlantic region. From Baltimore, among the available train routes were the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, absorbed into the Pennsylvania Railroad system in 1902, ran north from Baltimore through Maryland towns in Harford and Cecil Counties, and through Delaware to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad departed Baltimore from Camden and Mount Royal Stations with trains to New York, Washington, or out to the mid-West via West Virginia, making plenty of local stops at small towns including Relay on the Patapsco River in southern Baltimore County.

On the Northern Central Railroad, one could head north of Baltimore to stations at Cylburn, Brightside, Woodberry, Mount Washington, Lake Roland, Ruxton, Lutherville, and Timonium. Other branches turned toward Phoenix, Monkton, White Hall, and Parkton, or Walker, Blue Mount, Bentley Springs, New Freedom, Shrewsbury, Glatfelter, and on to York and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The Northern Central Railroad ran special trains to Timonium, Maryland when the State Fair was in progress every year in August, and thousands of people would depart for this event from the Calvert Station, which stood on the site of the Sun offices at Centre and Calvert Streets.

Charles Chaney was evidently a train enthusiast, in that he not only traveled by train but also focused his camera on specific train engines, identifying them by type or name in his album: the "big double-header" excursion train on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, or the NCR Railroad (engine) #3119. He knew, in some cases, the train’s history; for example, that NCR #3119 was President McKinley’s funeral train. Chaney may have been an employee of the Baltimore and Ohio or Pennsylvania Railroad, possibly working out of New York.